Haunted
by FanWriterGirl994
Summary: Reid is a rationalist, a man of science. The realms of art, emotion, and spirituality make little sense to him. he is pulled out of his comfort zone when he is haunted by the benevolent Ghost of a child who wants Reid to uncover the truth about his death and in doing so prevent those he left behind from meeting the same fate. Can he bring peace to the boy and save the other victims
1. Crazy

Prologue: Crazy

Reid: _"_ _When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable must be the truth." – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle_

Reid was alone in his apartment. It was late Sunday night, well, technically it was Monday morning. It was dark in his dimly-lit living room, dark, and silent. The only sound was that of him turning a page. He really should have gone to bed hours ago and tried to get some sleep, instead he'd just sat there, reading every book he has been able to find at the library earlier, on the subject of ghosts and hauntings. The texts in front of him looked at the issue from a variety of angles, from non-specific believers, self-proclaimed mediums, so-called experts of the afterlife as defined by each of the various major religions, and skeptics who tried to explain the phenomenon with some sort of scientific explanation. Now one might ask, why a man of science would entertain the idea of a supernatural phenomenon. The answer was simple… he was starting to think that he was being haunted.

In the past few weeks, he'd had strange dreams that didn't seem to be based on anything he'd ever seen, heard or read about, or experienced in his own life. The main character of these dreams was a small boy with red hair and blue green eyes, he appeared to be between six and eight years of age.

For the last week or so, Reid had seen the same child following him wherever he went, literally everywhere, he never said a word, never made a sound, but he was as solid and clear as any other child, but no one else seemed to be able to see him. None of the others had commented on or acknowledged his presence in any way… something for which there could only be one explanation. No one else could see the boy, just Reid.

At first, he'd been absolutely terrified, certain that the boy was a hallucination and a sign that he was following in his schizophrenic mother's footsteps, but the child was vivid and clear, which was in direct conflict with hallucinations indicative of schizophrenia and Reid didn't seem to be able to control him whatsoever. These deviations from the traits of schizophrenic hallucinations, along with the fact that at thirty-one and a half, he had finally aged out of the peak vulnerability for a schizophrenic break, had led Reid to conclude that the boy was not merely a figment of his own mind, but something real and separate from him, and if that was true while it was also true that no one else was able to see him, then the most likely explanation was that he was a ghost, one who had chosen to reveal himself to Reid and to no one else.

From what he was reading, it was believed that ghosts typically haunted either people, or places and when they haunted people, it was usually either their murderers, or a loved one they left behind when they died. Reid was neither, he had never seen this child before in his life and certainly hadn't killed him, and in fact he spent most days putting people like that behind bars where they belonged.

According to his research, the most common motivations for a ghost to haunt a stranger were either because that person had invaded or made unwelcome changes to the ghost's place of residence, which was often either their place of death or their home from when they were alive, or because they wanted or needed something from the person they revealed themselves to.

Reid had lived in the same apartment, in the same building, since moving to DC, and had made no major structural changes to it in the ten years he'd lived there, and he'd checked the hotel in Chicago the team had been staying at when the dreams had originally begun. There was no record of that being haunted either. So this probably wasn't about where he'd been or what he'd done with the place. The question was, what could this kid possibly want from him?

When he'd started reading, everything had looked and felt normal. There was nothing out of place, and there was no sound, no indication of life anywhere else in the apartment. Nothing strange was going on at all.

When Reid looked up from a book detailing the different reasons for a ghost to haunt the living, he noticed that the boy was standing there in front of him. He looked to be about three feet eight inches tall, and wore blue shorts, a red shirt with short, blue sleeves, thick, oval-shaped glasses, and a red and blue Chicago Cubs baseball hat. That certainly lent credence to the theory that he'd picked up this apparition during the last case in Chicago, but that still didn't explain why it had chosen him for whatever it had in mind.

As usual, the boy didn't make a sound. He just stood there silently, but there was a pleading look in his eyes that yanked at Reid's heart strings. There was something eerily tragic about this child that activated Reid's untried paternal instincts.

"What do you want?" Reid asked.

The child didn't respond.

"What's your name…?"

Still, the little ghost stayed silent and motionless.

"I can't help you if I don't know who you are and what you want…" Reid told him.

"Nolo enim vos ignorare ambigebam homicidium" _I want you to solve my murder_ the boy finally replied, as he said the words, they appeared, as though they were being written in white chalk, the sort that would have been used on classroom blackboards, on the wall across from where Reid sat, the boy's voice was even, but there were tears in his eyes.

Latin? Had Reid just heard, what he thought he'd just heard? Latin seemed an odd choice, but Reid decided to just run with it. The boy had asked him to solve his murder, but he couldn't do that without an identifiable victim or a place and time of death.

"Quod tibi nomen est?" He asked. _What is your name?_

The boy shook his head. It wasn't time for Reid to know that yet.

Then, just as quickly as he had come, the boy disappeared once again.

It didn't make any sense, who was this kid? Why and how had he been killed? And why was he under the impression that Reid would be able to solve what was most likely either a cold case or a murder that had gone entirely unreported?

 _Maybe because the case that you worked just before he started appearing to you had been a cold case that had suddenly grown hot again._ He thought to himself.

Then there was the matter of how to work the case even once he found evidence of the boy's murder, without arousing suspicion from Maeve or the rest of the team. After all, what reason could he possibly give them to explain his sudden interest in a case involving the murder of a child whom he had never met and who likely had been killed years previously? If he told them the real reason, they would probably force him to endure a drug test and a psychological evaluation. They all knew that he was at risk for having inherited a predisposition to Schizophrenia, which Reid was well aware was exactly what this would look like to anyone else.

There was no way that he could tell them. They were his family, he wanted to tell them, he desperately wanted their input, but every bit of their training as profilers would lead them to completely misunderstand this. He couldn't afford to let them in this time, nor could he face the looks on their faces when they would think, as he had at first, that he was finally losing it.

He sighed, washed the boy's chalk message off of the wall, and put his research materials in a box, which he then carried with him to his room and hid under the bed. That way no unexpected visitors would find them.

He set his alarm, got into bed, and allowed exhaustion to carry him out of consciousness. He fell asleep pretty easily, which was unusual for him, but the dream he had that night was strange, and anything but peaceful.

He was standing in what he first assumed to be a grassy field, it was a clear day, warm, windy… without knowing how he knew, Reid was instantly aware that this was an afternoon in late spring, and that this was the past…

As he looked under his feet, he saw that he was standing on sand, not grass. That's when he realized that this wasn't a field, it was a baseball diamond. All around him, there were small boys running around the diamond, and based on their differing uniforms there were two teams who were in the middle of a game. It was almost like he was watching the game itself in fast forward.

He noticed that one of the teams was wearing the same outfit as the little boy he'd been seeing, so he looked around trying to see if he was among them. He was. He was currently up at bat. Reid watched as he swung, once, twice, on the third time, he hit it and the ball went sailing into the air and flew past the third baseman. Granted, the ball was low by adult standards, reaching a maximum altitude of eight feet off the ground, but that was plenty when all the other players were only an average of four feet tall.

The little boy ran as fast as he could around the bases, and just narrowly escaped being tagged out by a player on the opposing team by diving into home. His teammates didn't dog-pile on top of him, or lift him into the air cheering, but they did surround him, giving him high fives and recounting what had just taken place from their own various perspectives. The boy took all this in with pride and elation, smiling from ear to ear at what he had accomplished.

That made Reid smile. It reminded him of his own game-winning homerun when Morgan had roped into playing against the Secret Service with the FBI's softball team.

That's when the dream changed. Suddenly the baseball field faded away and was replaced by a suburban neighborhood on a windy, stormy night. Reid stood beneath a willow tree in some random stranger's front yard but strangely, and in evidence that this was indeed a dream, he remained utterly and completely dry despite the fact that the rain was coming down in sheets.

The storm was so thick that all he could see was the light from the windows of the house across the street. Thunder roared above him, every so often a streak of lightning would crash into the ground somewhere in the distance, between that and the rain, the noise was deafening.

Suddenly, something with bright, red and blue flashing lights came barreling toward the house, its lights and siren cutting through the noise and blackness of the night. It took Reid a moment to figure out what it was. When it finally came onto the actual street, it became obvious that it was an ambulance. It pulled up in the driveway of the house across the street. Two paramedics jumped out, dragging a gurney behind them.

Reid watched as they came back just a couple of minutes later with a small child wrapped in a blanket on top of the gurney, a child that, to Reid's horror, he realized was the same one whose ghost had been following him. The boy's mother jumped in the back after her son, and the ambulance sped off into the darkness, back the same way it had come.

Reid knew in that instant, without knowing how he knew, that what he was seeing had to do with, and may actually be part of the murder the boy wanted him to solve… but before he could work out how to determine exactly where and when the events he was watching had taken place, he was pulled back to consciousness and out of the dream/vision, by the ringing of his alarm clock.


	2. Victimology

***Author's Note*: Now, we get into the actual case. Here's the thing, I LOVE, and I mean LOVE feedback... I also want those who follow this story to have a chance to read and digest one chapter before I post the new one, so here is how updates are going to work. I will post a chapter every time I get 50 visitors and at least one review on the previous chapter. I really, really care about this story and I want to know what you guys think. Without further ado, here's the next portion, please read, comment, and enjoy. :)**

Chapter 1: Victimology

Reid awoke the next morning to find the ghost sitting, cross legged, in front of his dresser, watching him with that same, mournful, lonely look in his eyes. He sighed, guessing that this was going to be another one of those days where the boy followed him everywhere.

He got up, made his bed, smoothing the dark gray and white quilt so that it was perfectly flat, and walked over to the dresser, but stopped before opening the drawer he needed. He still wasn't sure how all this worked. Would the drawer hit the boy in the back of the head as he opened it, or pass right through him? Could the boy feel pain? He wasn't sure…

"Could you move please so I can get in there?" He asked.

The boy scooted off to the side so that he sat beside the dresser, though he gave Reid a questioning look as if he was confused as to why he would need to move. Reid peered back at him with a look that was just as confused, so the boy got up, walked over to Reid's bedroom door, and walked right through it and came back in the same way. That answered that then.

Once Reid was ready, he grabbed his bags and headed for the train station, with the little boy following him.

The hardest part about having him around, was pretending that he wasn't around. Reid had to remind himself that no one else could see the boy, so while his instincts were to keep track of him, make sure he was keeping up, and even to buy him a train ticket, none of that was necessary and he had to act as though he couldn't see him either.

What surprised Reid most was just how different the boy was from a stereotypical ghost. He wasn't see-through for one thing, except maybe for an instant while on his way to wherever he went when he wasn't with Reid, and he didn't float, he walked. Despite his small size, he was able to match Reid's pace almost step for step, usually being off to his left and just barely behind him.

At the BAU, the team gathered immediately in the conference room. There was no time to waste. As Reid and the others took their seats around the table, the ghost child stood silently against the wall in the corner of the room.

Garcia grabbed the remote and began the briefing.

She pushed a button and a picture of a boy in his late teens with exceptionally pale skin, dark brown hair and blue eyes appeared on the screen.

"You my friends… are headed back to Chicago, well, technically Woodridge, which is a suburb a few miles outside the south end of the city. That's because two days ago, nineteen year old James Boyard Kirkland aka Bo, as he was known by his friends, was tased to death at a gas station there where he stopped to fill up his truck." She explained.

"Tasing isn't usually fatal though, are we sure that's the real cause of death?" Reid asked.

"Yes, although you're right it's not easy to kill most people with a Taser, unfortunately for James though, he had preexisting medical issues that made it a lot easier to do, specifically congenital heart disease, a combination of two to be exact, Long QT syndrome and Marfan syndrome…"

The others looked at each other in confusion before turning to Reid, expecting him to be able to explain how those specific problems would turn a Taser into an effective murder weapon.

Reid saw their 'English please' stares and launched into his explanation. "Long QT syndrome is a condition is which the ion channels, along which the electrical pulsations of the heart travel didn't form properly during fetal development, that alone would put him at risk for arrhythmia, an irregular heartbeat. Marfan's syndrome also causes arrhythmia but comes with several structural defects as well… if he survived into early adulthood and was murdered instead of passing away due to natural causes that means that the structural abnormalities involved in Marfan's were probably repaired via open heart surgery, likely when he was an infant." Reid explained. "Garcia, did James have a pacemaker to control the arrhythmia?" He asked.

"Yes he did, he got it when he was two, it has since been replaced four times, according to his medical records, and the Taser that our unsub used killed him by frying the latest one, causing an electrical storm in his heart that the ME says was equivalent to a grand-mal seizure."

"Do we know where he was headed after he stopped for gas?" Morgan asked.

"Yes, he was a sophomore at Chicago Lake Michigan University, he was headed back to campus… he was going to take a summer class, but he couldn't because his pacemaker needed replacing, the surgery itself went well, but he got an infection while he was still recovering and the doctors kept him in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit because they were afraid that the bacteria would attack his heart directly, which given his issues probably would have killed him had that happened… he was literally just cleared a few days ago to go back to school." Garcia replied.

"Well it shows here that James was a pretty low risk victim…" Blake pointed out, reading the file in front her. "He grew up in the upper-middle class, went to parochial school from kindergarten through twelfth grade, graduated top of his class from St. Scholastica School's high school campus… he got full ride academic scholarships to several different prestigious universities, this guy isn't looking for easy targets or victims who won't be missed…."

"So far, James Kirkland appears to be this unsub's only victim, but an unsub this bold and sophisticated is unlikely to be a one-hit-wonder and given James's medical issues, the murder weapon could have been an attempt to make his death appear to be natural or caused by mechanical failure, so there may be others we don't know about yet… whether there are more out there or this unsub's just getting started, we need to get ahead of this and fast. Wheels up in twenty…" Hotch ordered.

The team nodded, and went to grab their go-bags before making their way to the jet.

Reid was trying very hard to pretend he didn't know he was being followed by his ghostly little friend, but he knew, even without looking behind him, he knew that the child was following right on his heels.

On the jet, the kid sat in the corner of the section that looked and functioned like an extra-long sofa, with Reid in the booth directly across the Isle from him. He never strayed far if he was there at all.

"So far what do we have?" Hotch asked.

"This unsub is highly organized… he probably would have had to stalk James to know that he had a pacemaker. That shows premeditation and organization." Rossi pointed out.

"The unsub was also smart enough to wait until he was alone and use forensic counter measures… local police found the Taser but there was no DNA or prints. This unsub might be in the system and if so, he knows the second he leaves any identifiable trace evidence we'll be that much closer to catching him." Reid added.

"Are we sure this is even a male unsub?" Morgan asked. "Using a Tazer as a murder weapon speaks to someone who probably can't over power their victims, plus a non/semi-violent MO like that is usually indicative of a female unsub. An ex-girlfriend might know about his heart condition and how to abuse it…."

"That is true…we should talk to his classmates and professors and find out if he had any known enemies…" Hotch decided.

"Ok, first we'll go to Woodridge, talk to his family, the ME, and look at the murder site to find out if anything other than the Taser might have given this unsub the upper hand… Reid and Rossi, talk to his family, Morgan, you and I will go to the crime scene, Blake and JJ, you two go to the ME and see if there's anything more she can tell us…once we've learned all we can from Woodridge we'll go to the university, at which point, Reid, you and JJ will talk to his professors and see if there was anything going on with James at school that might not have left a paper trail." Hotch told them, giving everyone their marching orders.

When the plane landed at the airport nearest to Woodridge, the team split up into three different SUVs, Rossi and Reid (ghostly company included) headed to James' parents' house.

While they were in the car, Garcia called Rossi with more information.

"Guys, I've got something." She told them.

"What'd you find?" Reid asked.

"Turns out that while James didn't have a criminal record, not even as a juvenile, one of his neighbors five blocks over in the same subdivision called the cops because they were creeped out by the fact that he was loitering on the edge of their yard and driving by their house a lot even though they don't live on a direct line to the main road, he did…considering they didn't even actually press charges and I only know about it because I dug up the police report which is from last June, I'm gonna take a guess and say they weren't upset enough about it to kill him, but it's definitely something we didn't know before…"

"It's something to touch base with his family about…thanks Garcia…" Rossi replied.

"You're welcome Sir."

The Kirkland house was a long, rectangular bi-level right off the main street in and out of the subdivision. The lower half of the house was faced with brick, while the top half had light crème colored siding. The windows on the bottom half were plain with white trim, the windows on the upper half had bright red shutters on them.

They climbed the steps to the front door and rang the doorbell.

A woman in her mid-forties but who appeared to be significantly older, with black hair and blue eyes opened the door. She was wearing a dark purple T-shirt and a black denim skirt.

"Harriet Kirkland?" Rossi asked, guessing that she was most likely the victim's mother.

"Yes…" She answered.

"I'm SSA David Rossi, my associate here is Dr. Spencer Reid… we'd like to talk to you about your son, James… we're helping the police try to find out who killed him…"

"May we come in?" Reid asked.

She nodded, and beckoned them inside. They came in onto a low-riding platform with the staircase up to the second floor off to their left, and a single step up into the living room directly in front of them. She led them to the living room and she sat in the recliner while Reid, Rossi, and Reid's mysterious little ghost, sat on the sofa against the wall.

"What do you want to know…?" She asked, sounding worn out and defeated, as most of the families they talked to on these cases usually did.

"Did James have any enemies? Perhaps someone who might have known he'd be particularly vulnerable to this kind of attack?" Reid asked.

"Enemies? No… God no… he always had a lot of friends… he was the kind of kid who was popular but for the right reasons… you know, the one who's so nice to everyone that no one has anything bad to say… if there was any drama, it was Bo who was always the one ending it, reminding his classmates that their petty disputes weren't worth their friendships…" she replied.

"What happened with your neighbors? Why did the Greenfields call the police three months ago about him hanging around their house?" Rossi asked.

"Please try to understand…my son was not a stalker…"

"We aren't saying he was…we just need to have an understanding of any potential conflicts because right now, we can't rule anything out…" Reid clarified.

"It's not them that Bo was interested in… it's the house… the Greenfields have only lived there for a couple of years. Before that, the family of an old friend of Bo's lived there, the two of them were just like brothers…"

"Did something happen to this friend?" Rossi asked.

She looked down and away from him and let out a single tortured sob while she nodded in the affirmative. "He…he died…a long time ago… when the boys were seven…it tore his parents apart, destroyed the marriage. When they separated three years ago, they just decided it was easier to both move rather than fight over the house." She explained. "Bo was so upset when they put it up for sale…can't begin to count how many times he kicked down the 'for sale' sign and threw it in the dumpster…for him there were a lot of memories in that house…"

"If you don't mind us asking…how did his friend die?" Reid asked.

"He had heart problems of his own… Transposition of the Great Arteries and Hypoplastic Right Heart Syndrome… that and his also had an immune deficiency, infection took hold… spread throughout his body and… well… there was nothing the hospital could do for him at that point…up till I lost Bo, I couldn't fathom what my friends went through… now I wish I didn't know… soon both our boys will be in the ground… one killed by bacteria, the other by a homicidal maniac with a Taser… which is worse?"

Reid and Rossi didn't know how to respond to that.

Out of the corner of his eye, Reid noticed that the ghost child seemed agitated, he was jumping up and down, shaking his fists, and then despite the fact that she could neither see, nor hear him, he hugged Mrs. Kirkland from behind.

 _I wonder if he and James are connected…_ he thought to himself.

Meanwhile at the medical examiner's office…

JJ and Blake were talking to the ME, Dr. Melody Jackson. She was a shot woman in her late fifties with black hair and brown eyes.

"The Taser fried his pacemaker, like a power surge would a computer… it sent a much higher than normal voltage into his heart, causing it to go into tachycardia, which means that the heart was still beating, racing actually, but it wasn't pumping… no blood was being moved, his blood pressure dropped to undetectable levels almost immediately, and from there his body started shutting down, he was dead within a few minutes, probably unconscious the entire time… the initial shock probably knocked him out…thank God for that, had he been awake this would have been a painful and terrifying way to die…" The ME explained.

"Do you think that the unsub _knew_ that James had a pacemaker?" Blake asked.

"Oh definitely…" she replied, drawing their attention to his chest. "Do you see the pre-existing scar just above the electrical burn made by the Taser?" she asked.

They nodded.

"Whoever did this was clearly targeting the device, that scar is from implantation. It's low enough and close enough to his shoulder that his shirt would have covered it up. So they had to have known he had one and known enough about pacemakers in general to know where it was located." She explained.

"Does that point to the unsub having medical training?" JJ asked.

"No, this information is out there on the internet, anyone with a smart phone could've found it in less than five minutes." She admitted. "I know that doesn't help you identify who did this..."

"That's alright..." Blake told her. "Hopefully the crime scene can tell us more..."


	3. The Other 1

Chapter 2: The Other 1%

Hotch and Morgan were still at the crime scene. The gas station was right off the main highway between Woodridge and Chicago. There was a sandwich shop in the same building, but other than that, this particular stretch was deserted.

"This Unsub is definitely bold, this gas station is right off the main highway, plenty of chances to get caught if the wrong person drives by." Morgan pointed out.

"Maybe not, using a Taser is quick, clean, and efficient… no blood, no DNA, no prints if the unsub wore gloves or wiped down the murder weapon before dumping it." Hotch replied. "They simply Tase him and then leave him to die…" Hotch pointed out.

"Based on the crime scene photos that's exactly what he did… the unsub just left him here, there's no sign of remorse whatsoever, no overkill either…"

Then they walked in and approached the counter. A bald man in his forties who didn't seem to like the idea that they weren't there to buy anything was minding the store.

"What do you two want?" the man asked.

"Agents Hotchner and Morgan, FBI… we're investigating a murder that took place at this gas station just two days ago. A nineteen year old boy was Tased to death and then abandoned at the scene." Hotch explained.

"Do you have any surveillance footage we can take a look at?" Morgan asked.

The shopkeeper nodded, and grudgingly turned the monitor in front of him toward the agents.

The footage showed what appeared to be an older man who was probably in his fifties or sixties, wearing a baseball cap approach James while he was pumping his gas. They watched as the unsub engaged his victim in conversation.

"Well, we were right about one thing… he knew and/or trusted his killer…" Hotch observed.

"The unsub's doing a good job of hiding his face from the cameras, he probably knows where they are." Morgan added.

"Which means he's comfortable in the area… but not enough to show his face… he might think that someone would know who he is if we had a picture to show them… We should regroup with the others, see if they found out anything helpful." Hotch decided.

The met Rossi, Reid, JJ, and Blake back at Woodridge Police Department.

"This unsub has no remorse for what he's doing… he just Tased the kid and then left him there…" Morgan told the others as they walked into the conference room a half an hour later. "But whoever it was, James knew him, or thought he did… they actually had a conversation right before the unsub pulled out the Taser."

"Well that fits with what JJ and I heard from the ME…" Blake replied. "the unsub not only knew that James had a pacemaker, he knew exactly where to aim to strike the device directly…"

"Now, she told us that didn't necessarily point to the unsub having medical training, but really, what are the chances that this is random?" JJ asked.

They all knew the answer to that, it was becoming more and more obvious by the second that this was anything but random.

"His mother told Rossi and me something interesting though…" Reid added.

"What'd you guys find out?" Morgan asked.

"Their neighbors called the police a few months ago about James watching their house…" Rossi began.

"Did they press trespassing charges?" JJ asked

Rossi and Reid both shook their heads.

"At first we thought that we might be looking at a possible motive, until his mother explained it to us. It was the house that James was interested in, it wasn't about who lives there now, it's about who _used to._ Before the current homeowners, the house was owned by the family of one of James' childhood friends." Reid explained.

"But the friend died, back when they were kids, and as we know happens quite often to couples who lose a child… the grief eventually destroyed the marriage. In the midst of the divorce, they sold the house rather than have it be another bargaining chip between the two of them…" Rossi finished.

"How did the friend die? I mean could this kid have been one of our unsub's earlier victims?" JJ asked. "We profiled that this probably wasn't his first time…"

"It's unlikely, although not impossible… the friend also suffered from congenital heart disease, although his defects were different… apparently this friend died of infection, if he was sick, especially if it was bacterial endocarditis and the unsub was somehow involved in his care he could have killed him by simply withholding the antibiotics… That would also explain how he knew about James having a pacemaker. Not only that but it's just about the perfect murder plan…" Reid commented.

"What do you mean 'perfect murder plan'?" Hotch asked.

"I mean that assuming for a minute that there was in fact foul play of some sort involved in the friend's death… under the circumstances, even with an autopsy it would still most likely go on record as natural causes. Both James, and his friend had congenital heart disease, and given their age, it wouldn't be considered all that suspicious if they suddenly took a turn for the worse and died. Congenital heart disease, more commonly known as CHD occurs in approximately 1% of live births worldwide and even here in the US, statistically speaking, as many as 14,000 of the 40,000 CHD infants born this year, won't live to see their eighteenth birthday. In the mid-90s when James and his friend were born the survival ratio was more like 50/50… CHD still kills more children every year than all forms of pediatric cancer combined…" Reid explained.

"Oh my God…" JJ exclaimed. "Those poor parents…"

"It stands to reason that a CHD patient who was killed in a hospital setting wouldn't go down as a murder victim, just another one of the fallen…"

"Ok, true but just one problem… James wasn't killed in a hospital… he was murdered on his way back to school…" Morgan pointed out.

"Plus the friend died twelve years ago… there's no way for us to find out if he was a victim of this unsub or if he just got sick and passed away…" JJ added.

"But James was in the hospital recently and he did have complications this time… we should check to see if any other mysterious deaths occurred at the hospital where he was treated… we might be looking at an angel of death…" Reid theorized.

"Angels of death usually kill those who they believe will die anyway. In their minds, they're just hastening the inevitable and putting an end to their victim's suffering. When James' last surgery didn't go exactly as planned, he could've been in the unsub's crosshairs…"

"Except that instead of dying, he got better and was eventually well enough to resume a relatively normal life… usually angels of death choose victims who are more obviously terminal and move on to more suitable prey if their victim recovers…" Hotch pointed out.

"Usually, but James could have become his idealized target, and when he got better instead of worse… the unsub could have decided to use the very thing designed to save his life to kill him…" Morgan theorized.

"Or a eugenicist, the unsub may see these victims as a genetic liability…" Blake commented.

"Is CHD even genetic?" JJ asked.

"In most cases no, only 3% of all CHD conditions and combinations have a known genetic cause and only between 15 and 20% run in families…" Reid replied. "That still doesn't rule eugenics out though, similar to the way white supremacists blame the entire population of the minorities they despise for society's problems, a eugenicist committed enough to do this wouldn't really care if their victims' health issues were genetic or not, just the fact that they had a chronic issue at all would make them seem inferior and allow an unsub like that to dehumanize them…"

They called Garcia.

"Hello my pretties, what can I do ya for…?"

"Garcia, at which specific hospital was James Kirkland being treated?" Hotch asked.

"That would be… Hope Children's Hospital…the doctor in charge of his case was the same one who put the original pacemaker in when he was a toddler… His name would be Dr. Marcus Greenfield…he and his wife are the current owners of the house from that police report I found…" Garcia answered.

"Who lived there before they moved in?" Rossi asked.

"That would be, Daniel and Melinda Ethridge… they moved there from Dixon back in 2001. They have two kids but there should be three, their oldest, Matthew, who should be James' age right now, died of sepsis and multiple organ shutdown back in 2003…"

"Where did he die…?"

"Hope Children's… and he's not the only one… there have been eight patients under the age of twenty, with birth defects of the heart-related variety, who died at that place from 2002 to 2012..."

"Did they all die in a similar fashion?" Reid asked.

"No… Matt died of infection… a few others died of congestive heart failure, one died on the operating table during a heart transplant, two died on the operating table… one of them came in all but dead after having a heart attack during his middle school basketball game…"

"Ok, were they all local to this area…?" Reid asked.

"That would also be a no… that hospital is something called a 'regional center of excellence' whatever that means… their program draws families from all over the Midwest, and our list of possible victims reflects as much…"

"Then it's probably not about where these kids are coming from. What about doctors… did Dr. Greenfield treat all the dead kids?" Morgan asked.

"That is yet another no… there are two other pediatric docs from the region with privileges at the hospital and everyone treats their own patients, apparently the administration at this place does not believe in crossover…"

"Well… it's not him then…" Morgan replied.

"Hold on… the first thing we need to do is determine for sure if any of these children were in fact killed by our Unsub… if so, he'd have to work at the hospital to have that kind of access, but if he's also killing patients that aren't his own, he's most-likely not a doctor, more like a nurse or orderly… Garcia, look into the medical and autopsy records of the children on that list, see if anything doesn't match up or is evidence that they may have been the victims of negligent homicide…" Hotch ordered.

"Of course Sir, but because of privacy laws, this one's gonna take a while." Garcia warned.

"That's fine… just let us know when you have something." Hotch told her before hanging up.

"What do we do now?" JJ asked.

"We've learned all we can from Woodridge for now, let's go to the university… maybe there's something about James' life there that'll give us more clues to who the unsub is…" Hotch said with a mix of frustration and tempered optimism.

The others, including the ghost, who was currently standing at Reid's side, all nodded.

 ***Author's Note* Thank you so much to everybody who has read and reviewed this so far. I really do read all the comments I get. Thanks again for reading and look forward to the next chapter which should be up tomorrow or Wednesday.**


	4. Past & Future

***Author's Note* Sorry this upload was a little slow, I just wanted to make sure I was getting this one right, plus I had some class stuff to take care of and I fixed a couple of issues that a commenter found in Chapter 2 (Chapter 1: Victimology) Thank you again to FCOL for the information :). Anyway thanks for all the readership and feedback guys, really appreciate it and I'm really glad you're all enjoying the story. Here's the next chapter:**

Chapter 3: Past and Future

Two hours later, Reid pushed open the door and entered what had been James' dorm room at CLMU. It was a private room, he hadn't had a roommate, and his mother hadn't come yet to pack up her son's belongings, so everything was exactly as James had left it when he'd left for the routine appointment that had landed him back in the OR.

It looked like a normal teenager's dorm room… all the furniture appeared to be standard university issue, made of a thin but study wood with a light brown/dark tan stain. There were posters on the walls of baseball and basketball players, school pennants, basketball and debate trophies sat on a shelf above the dresser… the bed was covered by a royal blue and navy plaid comforter, which the ghost was now sitting on.

The ghost child watched Reid intently as he examined the rest of the room, as though he was waiting for something.

Reid noticed this and poked his head back out into the hallway to make sure there was no one within earshot.

Once satisfied, he turned his attention to the boy.

"Quid vultis nosse?" he whispered. _What is it you want me to notice?_

The boy's answer was silent, but as always, he made himself understood… he walked over to James' desk, taped onto the shelving unit built into the desk's surface, was an old photograph. The ghost pointed at it, or more specifically, the children in it.

Reid gently lifted it off the desk to take a closer look. In the photo, a young James, who couldn't have been older than four or five years old when it was taken, was standing next to two other small children. They were standing in a driveway in front of an open garage. James was on the far left, wearing a red shirt and red and navy shorts, holding a basketball which was also red and navy blue. Next to him, in the center, wearing jeans and a red and blue letterman jacket, stood a boy that Reid actually recognized. In the photo, he was a little younger, and his hair was more strawberry-blond than its current auburn… but it was unmistakably the ghost who now stood beside him….

"Hoc est tibi?" _Is this you?_ Reid asked, showing him the photo.

The ghost answered by nodding in the affirmative.

"Matthew est nomen tuum?" _Is your name Matthew?_ Reid asked in a hushed voice.

The boy nodded again.

So that was it… Bo and Matthew weren't just two friends who had both died prematurely, they were victims who had been killed by the same person… Now Reid understood… the hospital wasn't that far from the hotel they'd stayed in the last time they were in Chicago… Matthew had decided to haunt him, in an effort to protect the friend he knew was in danger… but Reid hadn't caught on fast enough and now James was dead too…so why was Matthew still with him?

Matthew blinked and turned back to the photo, as if to say: _There's still more to see._

Taking the hint, Reid examined the photograph again. The third child, the one on the far right, was a little girl who was maybe one or two years older than her friends, wearing a pink jumper with little white polka-dots and a white blouse underneath it, she had brown hair and glasses, and was also holding a basketball.

Reid was about to ask him who the girl was, but that's when his phone began to ring.

"Hi Garcia…"

"Reid, I already told Hotch but for some reason the conference call didn't work. I found something…"

"What did you find?"

"You know that kid, Matthew Ethridge?"

"Yeah…"

"Well it turns out that he died when a case of pneumonia that his parents originally thought was just the flu quickly turned into endocarditis and sepsis… that's not surprising given his medical history but here's the surprising part, the antibiotics that his doctor ordered for him, weren't the ones found in his bloodstream during the autopsy…"

"Which ones did the ME find?" Reid asked.

"Penicillin… but he was prescribed something called rocephin…Hotch told me to look for something fishy about these kids deaths and that is definitely fishy, isn't it?"

"Yes it is… someone messed up somewhere whether it was intentional or not… rocephin is used to treat bacterial pneumonia but only when it's caused by penicillin resistant strains of streptococcus pneumonia bacteria… it wouldn't make any sense to give him penicillin when based on the original prescription penicillin wouldn't do anything…"

"Exactly… the unsub could have mixed up his meds…" Garcia theorized. "That would kill him right?"

"That would do it…it would also be less risky for the unsub because it wouldn't be immediately apparent that he was was withholding anything since there would still be an IV hanging at his bedside…"

"I'll keep looking for similar issues in the other cases…"

"Ok, thank you so much Garcia…"

"You're welcome, Garcia out…" She told him before hanging up.

Right after his call with Garcia he saw JJ standing in the doorway…

"Was that Garcia…?" She asked.

Reid nodded.

"We were right… there's definitely an angel of death operating in Chicago…the question is how James fits in to all this. I mean he could've been an idealized target like Morgan suggested, but from what he and Hotch got from the security footage at the gas station I think it's something more than that…I mean angels of death don't usually kill people that they know outside of the patient/care-giver relationship…"

"Well maybe he attacked James for a reason more specific than that. I just talked to his Academic Advisor, he said that James declared his major within a month of his first semester starting. He chose psychology, and apparently he was very, very interested in abnormal psych and criminology… what if James was on to him…?" JJ asked.

"If that's the case, he was a victim of necessity, not opportunity… which is probably why he came after him even after he left the hospital…"

"But is there any evidence of that?" JJ asked.

"Well, it's safe to say he definitely missed his friend…" Reid replied, handing her the photo.

"The boy in the middle is the same one from the house James used to drive by all the time right?" She asked.

"Yeah…"

"Even if James just thought that his friend's death was suspicious and started poking around that could have been enough to catch the unsub's notice."

"And if he was right and he was getting too close, whether he fit the unsub's normal parameters or not, he would have had to eliminate him…" Reid concluded. "We've seen it before when Jason Battle shot Garcia because he thought she was linking his cases..."

JJ nodded. "What do you want to bet that is exactly what happened? Except…if that's what happened, why wouldn't James have gone to the local police?" She asked.

"He probably didn't have enough evidence to back up his theory and get the police to look into it, that and he probably knew that even if he managed that there would still be jurisdiction issues in terms of who would handle the case… they both lived in Woodridge but Matthew died here in Chicago. That means that the case would fall into the hands of the local field office and they'd have been even harder to convince."

"Then we need to find out how much James knew and who might have known he had the information. Plus there's another identification we need to make and fast…" JJ told him, pointing at the girl in the photograph.

"Agreed…"

They took a picture of the photo to send to Garcia and then bagged the original for evidence. Once they had done that, they left the university to meet up with the others at the local field office. As always, Matthew followed Reid out and got into the backseat of the vehicle.

Reid called Garcia back once they got on the road and put her on speaker.

"Hello my friends…cute pic by the way, does someone want to tell me how it's connected to our case?" Garcia asked.

"It's a photo we found in James Kirkland's dorm room, the boy in the middle is Matthew Ethridge, the only other victim we've confirmed, and we think the little girl next to him could also be on our unsub's list of targets so we need to identify her as quickly as possible…" Reid explained.

"Ok, but I'm going to need more than an old photo to find her you guys, any more parameters?"

"She looks to be about five or six years old in the photo which makes her roughly one to two years older than James and Matthew which would put her in her early twenties currently. She probably grew up within three hours of Woodridge and most likely also suffers from some form of CHD…"

"I'm checking, but again… full medical records not easy to get…"

"We need to find her and fast Garcia, if she is our unsub's next target then we either need to find him and bring him in or we need to find her and put her into protective custody…" JJ told her.

"Anything else?" Garcia asked.

"We think James might have known that Matthew's death wasn't entirely natural, check his social media and go through his computer for evidence of that and who else might have known about James' suspicions…"

"I am all over it…" She replied.

"Thanks Garcia..." They told her before hanging up.

Reid looked up in the rearview mirror, Matthew was kneeling on top of the seat in the middle, he used the mirror to return Reid's gaze with that now familiar pleading look, but this time there was something new in those blue-green eyes...fear...


	5. Capture

Chapter 4: Capture

Once they'd called Garcia, they called the others to let them know that they had new information.

Once they were all back in one place, Garcia appeared on the 50-inch plasma screen in their conference room in the local field office.

"Ok my family, Boy Genius and Mama Grizzly found some intel but it gave us a few answers and more questions. Luckily I found some more answers, now gather 'round the campfire and walk with me through the darkness if you will… We've already determined that one other kid died as a result of this creepster's handiwork, well I have now linked five of the other seven to this nutjob… one of them, little Ella Jacobs, eight years old, died in the recovery room right after her heart transplant when the blood transfusion she was given was from an incompatible blood type… Kayla Walters was given medication in preparation for surgery that she was allergic to… Sam highland was overdosed on blood thinners and he bled out internally, Kyle Edwards died from a lethal drug combination, and Jake Weston was overdosed on anesthetic and forced into a coma before going completely brain dead…"

"That means this unsub is up to at least seven victims in thirteen years…." Blake calculated.

"Which is only about one every two years, we might have missed our chance to catch him… it could be two years before this guy surfaces again…" Morgan replied worriedly.

"Except that two of those victims, Matthew Ethridge and Kayla Walters died within a few months of each other, Matthew died in August, Kayla in November and both in 2003…" JJ pointed out. "He's killed in fairly short succession before…that and Spence and I don't think killing James would have given the Unsub his release…"

"Why is that?" Morgan asked.

"Because we don't think that James fits the Unsub's pattern, he wasn't killed to release him from a lingering, painful, and inevitable death… he was killed because he and Matthew were friends and he had suspicions that Matthew may not have died of entirely natural causes…"

"So you think the Unsub killed James because the kid might actually have been on to him, possibly even known who he was…" Morgan realized.

"Exactly, because James' murder was one of self-preservation, we don't think he satisfied the Unsub's compulsion. Garcia, were you able to find any evidence that James may have known about the killings?" Reid asked.

"Yeah… turns out that a bunch of friends of Matthew's had a social media memorial page for him… James and one other kid basically ran it… on what would have been his 19th birthday James posted a long drawn out monologue about how despite his frailty and sweet natured personality he was a tough kid, he called him a fighter and offered to swear on a stack of bibles that quote 'he would never have given up so easily'." She informed them.

"Well that tells us that he was certainly suspicious but that doesn't prove that he actually knew anything solid enough to raise the alarm of the unsub. This kind of unsub isn't paranoid, his god complex and perceived moral superiority would make him borderline arrogant." Hotch said.

"True but James is a smart kid and nothing in his room suggests that he was depressed so I doubt he'd abandon his instincts of self-preservation. Whatever else he might have had on the Unsub, he most likely wouldn't have made it public, but if he didn't know who the unsub was and yet knew him, he may have told him in confidence which would've then landed him on the unsub's hit list." Reid told them.

"We need to give the profile… Garcia, arrange a meeting with all the doctors and surgeons who work with these patients… they know who this guy is they just don't realize it…"

"On it Sir…" She replied, before ending the video call and disappearing off the screen, presumably to start making the necessary arrangements.

As a result of busy and conflicting schedules, it was another four and a half hours before they could get everyone they needed together in one room.

In all there were three cradiologists, eight hospitalist pediatricians, and five surgeons on the team that dealt with the hospital's unusually high concentration of CHD patients.

They, and the team were gathered in an average looking conference room, the team stood at the front, in front of a set of dry-erase boards which were built into one wall.

Hotch stepped forward and began the briefing.

"Thank you all for coming, in the past thirteen years, six children have died prematurely at this hospital, despite the fact that this is not all that out of the ordinary, these six specifically, did not pass away due to natural causes, they were murdered and we believe that their killer both works and hunts within this hospital. That's why you're here, we've determined based on the way this hospital organizes its staff that none of you are responsible for these deaths, but you do know who is." He explained.

"The Unsub or unknown subject responsible for these deaths is a white male, most likely in his early thirties to mid-forties with a god complex…" JJ told them.

"What we're dealing with here, is an angel of mercy, one who is highly intelligent, he takes very sick patients and kills them by either with holding treatment or purposely committing acts of malpractice…. So far, he has killed seven people between the ages of five and twenty in the last thirteen years." Blake added.

"His most recent victim, 19 year-old James Kirkland, represents a deviation in the MO. We believe James knew or was at least suspicious about the other killings and because of that, this unsub killed him in an act of preservation. What's interesting though, is that this Unsub still stuck to his preferred kill method of using the victim's medical issues against them, this tells us that despite his intelligence and organization, there's a compulsion which drives everything this unsub does. His mind may have been warped working here, watching his patients die, or he may have lost a loved one of his own, possibly a child, to medical issues similar to those of his victims. As a coping mechanism he probably got it in his head that dying was more merciful and now he wants to release others from their pain." Morgan continued.

"As a result of the fact that James did not fit this Unsub's normal victim selection criteria, we don't think his death satisfied that compulsion and because of this, we think he's most likely already back out on the hunt. He'll need to find a new victim quickly, but because crashing CHD patients are his norm, we believe that he's going to widen the parameters of his preferred victim type in order to satisfy his need to kill again soon. His victim might come from another ward within the hospital, or he may seek out another patient with CHD who is not currently admitted and kill them on the outside just like he did with James Kirkland…" Reid explained.

"Make sure that there's a doctor in the room observing when medications are given, IVs are changed, and patients are prepped for surgery, or tell every doctor throughout the building to carry out their own orders as much as possible. All families and patients with conditions similar to those of the other victims need to be warned to exercise extreme caution and avoid socializing with known members of the medical community outside of professional settings. We'll also need a list of those patients in order to try to determine which one of them in now in the Unsub's crosshairs." Rossi concluded.

"Thank you…" Hotch told the crowd as the briefing ended.

When it was over, the team was approached by a balding surgeon in his fifties by the name of Dr. William Bishop. What hair he did have, was gray and there was a warn look to his round face and emerald eyes that gave the impression that he'd seen too much. He was obviously troubled as he approached the six FBI agents before him.

"Are you saying that someone on our staff did this?" he asked.

"I'm afraid so…" Rossi answered.

"But the kind of person who would be capable of such a thing…" the doctor was too upset to finish. His voice trailed off mid-sentence.

"We don't think this unsub lacks a bedside manner… he feels pity for the children he kills, he cares about them. He does what he does, under the delusion that he's doing them a favor…" Hotch clarified.

…

Meanwhile, at eight-thirty that evening, a 21 year old college student with medium length, dark brown hair and golden brown eyes, was home alone, packing for her return to school. She'd moved most of her belongings into her new dorm room the previous week, what she was bringing back with her now, was simply a few last minute details.

She was tiny, less than five feet tall and less than a hundred pounds, the result of her difficulty growing and gaining weight in the midst of the medical crisis that had plagued her earliest years. After next weekend, all that would finally be over, next weekend, the stent which had been placed in her pulmonary artery to widen it and stop it from pinching off as she grew, would be re-expanded for the second and last time, best of all, she should, if all went well, be back on campus by the following Monday.

She jumped up to reach a book on the top shelf of her bookshelf, when she heard her dog, a six year old, black and white, Bichon Frise-poodle mix, barking her head off…

"What is it Cookie?" She asked, coming out into the living room to see what the dog was reacting to.

She peered out the blinds on the large bay window near the front door of her parent's ranch-style suburban home. The darkened street she'd grown up on for nearly twenty-two years looked as peaceful and quiet as it always was. She saw nothing suspicious or out of the ordinary in the darkness of the cool September night outside her door.

"Bad girl, barking at nothing…" she told the dog in a scolding tone…but that's when she heard the garage door rise.

She looked out the window again, but her mother's silver SUV wasn't pulling in. She stalked nervously into the family room to lock the inside garage door, but it was too late for that. A man she recognized but couldn't place, had already broken into her house.

He was a white man who looked to be about forty-ish, he was wearing a blue-gray hoodie, and he was at least twice her size.

Before she could pull out her phone and dial 911, he had her in a choke hold with a knife pressed against her throat.

Her heart hammered inside her chest, blood roared in her ears, a rush of energy raced into her arms and legs, but he already had her in his grip, there was nowhere to go.

He yanked her out into the garage and forced her into the driver's seat of her own car.

"Back out for me. If you try to drive off and leave me here, your family dies." He ordered coldly. "Do you understand?" he asked.

She nodded and did exactly as she was told, backing her 2005 ford focus out into the driveway so that her kidnapper could get in the car.

Once he was inside, he locked them in.

"Drive." He told her.

She obeyed, and they headed south in the direction of Woodridge.

"Why are you doing this?" She asked boldly.

"It's for the best, you'll be a lot better off where you're going… Besides, you'll be with James…"

Her breath caught in her throat.

"Bo… oh my God… what did you do to him…?!" she asked frantically.

"Calm down Sweetheart… keep your eyes on the road… James is in a better place now…" he told her reassuringly.

She knew right away exactly what he meant, and it made her stomach lurch.

"Oh God…" she was forced to pause to gag. "I think I'm gonna be sick…"

"Hold it in until we get there…just drive…" He barked.

"Ok, Ok… just tell me where we're going…it's already dark…"

"You'll know it when you see it…" He told her.


	6. Memory

Chapter 5: Memory

4 hours later…

It had been hours since the profile briefing. The hospital had immediately taken the precautions the team had suggested and given them a list of all the nurses and orderlies. Now they were waiting for Garcia to figure out who on that list overlapped all of the cases.

Finally, she called them back via Reid's phone. He answered it, put her on speaker, and set his phone down on the table.

"Hi Garcia, you're on speakerphone…"

"I have spent the past few hours combing and cross checking that list of nurses and orderlies and let me tell you something… the doctors themselves might all be neatly compartmentalized and have their separate lists of patients all separate and in neat little boxes… but with these guys it's a whole different story, you know who overlaps all of these cases on that list? I'll tell you who on that list overlaps with all the victims, _Everyone._ They're very orderly, pun intended, in the way they organize the doctors but everyone else is all over the place…Meaning that unless we find a stressor that I can search for via a deep background check we're not going to find the unsub this way… no leads on the mystery woman who used to be the little girl in the photograph either…"

"None?" Reid asked.

"Reid, the age parameters you gave me give us 10,000 possible matches… I'm gonna need a first name, more exact age, birthday, hometown, something else identifiable to narrow this down…"

"Have all of them gone to the Unsub's hospital?"

"Are we talking people who have gone there at one time or another or people who have gone there consistently?"

"Start with frequent flyers and work your way out from there…she knew to of our victims, and as young as they were, if it wasn't school it was probably something more like sharing a hospital or support group or something…" Morgan suggested.

"That still gets us 284 matches, any other ideas?" Garcia asked.

"Do any of them live in Chicago or Woodridge?" Reid asked.

"Surprisingly no…"

"Ok, how about in Illinois and surrounding states…?" JJ asked.

"That's still a hundred and fifty…"

"Are there any scheduled to have surgery at Hope Children's Hospital within the next month?" Reid asked.

"Reid you amaze me… there are only fifteen CHD survivors between the ages of twenty and twenty-five who are having surgery at that hospital in the next month… eight of whom are women… five of them are natural brunets… and oh, there's one here that's a super interesting hit…"

"Who is it?"

"Anastasia Blackthorn… she's a twenty-one year old junior at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater… she was born with three structural heart defects and left pulmonary artery stenosis…I don't know what that means…" Garcia told him.

"Pulmonary Artery Stenosis is a condition in which the artery is narrowed at birth to the extent of not allowing for the proper distribution of oxygenated blood… if left untreated the artery could have pinched off entirely, but I'm guessing it wasn't…" Reid said as if he was asking a question.

"You would be correct, she had a stent put in when she was five, it was expanded again when she was eleven, and it is set to be redone once again on Friday morning… Even better, she listed a certain someone by the name of Matthew Ethridge on her social media profile on a list of inspiring people, and if I use my age regression software to see what she would have looked like fifteen years ago when she was six, that's her, she's the little girl from the photograph…" Garcia replied happily.

"What's her cellphone number?" Morgan asked.

"I haven't found one yet, and her address is still listed as her parents' house, guys I'm not sure that she has one, not in her own name anyway…I can't even find a family plan under her parents' names… and we know from her online activity she's not a Luddite like the Good Dr. so what the heck is going on?" Garcia asked, sounding frustrated.

"Do her parents still have a landline by any chance?" Reid asked.

"Yes, they do and I've gotten their answering machine half a dozen times already… nobody's home at that house…" She told him.

"Hm… my guess is that she's at the university… I will say that even with the hospital basically on lockdown, it would still be less risky for this unsub to get to her there and make sure that something goes medically wrong. With her procedure less than a week away he might actually wait…" JJ said hopefully.

"Guys, it's late and we aren't going to find her by running ourselves into the ground… everybody should go to the hotel and get some sleep, we'll start fresh on this at six o'clock tomorrow morning unless we get some new information overnight…" Hotch ordered.

…

A half hour later, Reid was pacing the length of his hotel room, trying to make sense of it all, the killings, the haunting, the unsub… the room was an average single, plain, neutral color scheme, with what was probably the tackiest floral bedspread Reid had ever seen.

Matthew was there as always, sitting cross-legged on the bed.

"Why don't you just ask me what you wanna know? He asked.

Reid stopped in his tracks, that caught him by surprise.

"You speak English…?" he asked.

The child gave him a dubious look.

"Of course I do… also Latin…that's one of the good things about Catholic school…" the little boy replied.

"Why didn't you just speak English before then? It would have been easier…"

"'Cause… as a ghost I can only communicate indirectly with people who don't know who I was when I was alive… the barrier can be anything, language, silence, writing… it just can't be us verbally talking if we have the same first language… not until you figured out on your own who I was…" he explained.

"Matthew… I know you started haunting me, challenged me to solve your murder, because you were trying to protect James, sorry, you knew him as Bo… but… if that's the case… he's gone… he's on your side now… so why are you still here?" Reid asked.

"You know why. I asked you to solve my murder, you haven't yet… besides, Bo may be dead… but Ana's not…" Matthew reminded him.

"She's the unsub's next target, isn't she?" Reid asked, sure he already knew the answer.

Matthew nodded.

"I can't move on while my friends are still in danger, that's what ghosts are. We are the souls of those who should have passed on by now but couldn't; because there's something holding us here… I can't leave until the people I knew who are still alive are safe…" The little boy explained.

"Why did you choose me? I know you did, because I'm the only one who can see you… I just don't understand why…" Reid asked.

"The simple version…? You're the most open-minded of the people on your team I could have chosen… you were the most likely to see me for what I am and not assume that I was a figment of your imagination…here's the thing, I can only choose people who have seen The Gate, the doorway to the other side… That would be you, your boss, and computer girl… and they can't be anyone I used to know. I can communicate in very indirect ways, I can watch over Ana and my siblings, but I can't haunt them, I can't communicate with them even just like I did with you at first."

"Why can't you…?" Reid asked.

"Because this… this veil of separation from everyone you knew, is part of being dead… But that doesn't change anything. I'm not going anywhere until Ana's safe. I can't. She was like my big sister… she'd have died for me if given the chance. I'm already dead, but if I have to wait a little longer to move on so we can put this guy behind bars… I will…"

Reid nodded.

…

JJ was in the hallway outside of Reid's hotel room, she'd come to tell him that they'd gotten a late-night lead on the case after all and that Hotch wanted everyone back at the field office ASAP, when she heard him talking to someone. She couldn't hear exactly what he was saying, but something in her gut made her worry. It was after midnight here, which meant that it was after one in the morning in Virginia, it was unlikely that Maeve was still awake for him to talk to, would she? There had been something strange about his behavior the past week as well, he'd seemed…somehow on edge… like he was hiding something…

She knocked on the door.

"Spence… Anastasia Blackthorn was just reported missing by her mother…Hotch wants us all back at the field office…" She told him through the door.

He came out thirty seconds later.

"Spence, you ok?"

"Yeah… why wouldn't I be?" He asked.

JJ could tell that he was trying to appear calm, but there was an edge to his voice, like he was afraid that she'd noticed something she shouldn't. However, JJ had known him more than long enough to know he'd just shut down if she pressed the issue, so she pretended to believe him.

"How long as she been missing?" He asked.

"A neighbor said that he saw someone they didn't recognize come in through the garage door about eight-thirty, and saw the two of them drive off in her car around eight forty-five…" she replied.

"Make and model?" he asked.

"She drives a maroon, 2005 ford focus…" JJ answered.

"Leaving in her car was probably to ensure that the neighbors would assume she left willingly…what time did her mom call it in?" He asked.

"About an hour ago…"

"This unsub has never abducted one of his victims before, who knows how much time she as, we need to figure out where he's taking her and fast…"


	7. Endgame

***Author's Notes*: Sorry about the slow upload on this one guys, two words: College Midterms**

Chapter 6: Endgame

The Unsub forced Ana to pull over outside of a Catholic Cemetery near Woodridge. If there hadn't been street lights flanking the entrance, it would have been pitch black out.

"Do you know where you are?" He asked in a cold voice.

"Of course I do…" she answered. "Matt's buried here…" she said.

A lump rose in her throat as she thought about Matt, her eyes ached with tears she didn't dare cry. This man was crazy… she had no reason to show him the fear he seemed to want out of her.

"Why did you bring me here? What dose Matt have to do with any of this? Did you kill him too?" She barked accusingly.

"I released that boy… he's free now because of me…" He replied defensively.

Ana was aghast… she had never honestly believed that Matt had been beyond saving that last night, and given what he'd done to Bo and what he was doing to her, she wouldn't have put it past him for a second; but, the way he claimed responsibility as if it were an honor was something she hadn't been prepared for.

She felt an almost primal rage swell up within her, a surge of adrenalin suddenly making her much stronger than she was. She jumped up onto the seat and lunged at him, using the full force of her tiny frame to force him out onto the pavement in front of the gate and pin him to the ground.

The unsub just laughed in her face.

"What's a matter Sweetheart? 12 years too soon? Or can't you wrap your head around the fact that your little boyfriend is better off where he is, free of pain and suffering…?"

She pressed her arm against his throat, choking him. "Shut up. Matt may have been small, and young, and he may have had to go through a lot, we all have… but he was still happy, still full of life, and he wasn't a coward like you… he was twice the man that you will ever be…!" She spat.

At that, he used his larger size to overpower her, and pin her to the ground. Once again, he pressed his dagger against her throat.

"Wanna say that again? I can make your death quick and as painless as possible or I can gut you right now and leave you here… understand?"

She nodded.

"Good…" he replied, yanking her to her feet. "Walk…" he commanded, putting the knife to her back.

She obeyed.

He forced her through the gate, toward the chapel.

…

Once the entire team had gathered back at the field office, Garcia was ready and waiting on the phone with new information.

"The reason that I couldn't find Anastasia's cell phone, or any record of her having one at all is because the account was in her uncle's name, not her parents, he and her grandmother are included in the family plan. I spoke to her mother, now that I know which of these five lines is hers, I'm trying to use it to locate her… I also put an APB out on her car, since we know that's the vehicle they took…"

"Any hits yet?" Reid asked.

"Unfortunately no… and by the way there's something else you guys should know…" Garcia told them.

"What is it?" Blake asked.

"The Unsub may have tried to kill her once before… during the initial stent surgery she was given way to much anesthesia, and by way too much I mean an under-weight five year-old was given the approximate dose that should be given to a six foot tall, two-hundred and fifty pound grown man…she was in a coma for a couple of days, but she came out of it…" Garcia explained.

"That had to have been our Unsub, there's no way giving her more than five times the proper dose was a matter of human error… Garcia, was anyone charged with malpractice after that incident…?" Reid asked.

"Yes, the anesthesiologist who put her to sleep that time ended up losing his medical license." Garcia told them.

"Except, we know that the unsub still works at the hospital, so the anesthesiologist must've been framed, they fired the wrong man…" JJ pointed out.

"Probably a nurse or orderly like we thought who let the doctor take the fall…" Reid theorized.

"Guys, I found her… her cellphone is pinging off of some towers near a cemetery outside of Woodridge… and you're never gonna guess who's buried there…"

"Matthew Ethridge, the other victim that both she and James Kirkland were friends with?" Hotch guessed.

"Right you are, my liege… I will say after scanning her laptop that James was not the only one who thought that there was something fishy about the little guy's death… she had an entire folder of scientific research, most of it from real academic journals… which she had access to through school…all of it basically demonstrating that Matthew should have survived. However, there's nothing here to suggest that she knew who the Unsub was until tonight, or even that there were other victims besides Matthew…."

"Alright send us the address…" Morgan told her.

"Already done…sent it to your phones 60 seconds ago."

"Thank you Garcia…." Hotch replied, as he led the way to the two dark SUVs waiting outside.

Once the vehicles were in motion, both had their sirens blaring and blazed ahead at, at least twice the speed limit. Everybody knew that there was no time to lose.

On the way to the cemetery, Matthew road, unseen by the others, in Reid's lap since this time there was no empty seat.

Reid could feel the little boy clutch his hand, the way frightened children do when there's an adult around that they trust, though as always, outwardly at least, he ignored it, since he knew that no one else knew that Matthew was there.

It was obvious why the boy was so nervous, his post-mortem mission was about to come to an end, by the time the sun rose, Ana would either be safe, free to finish securing her own health and completing her degree, and her assailant would either be dead or on his way to prison, or she would be dead, yet another martyr of the unsub's cause…

It took all of Reid's self-control not to do or say something, anything to reassure him that he and the others would do everything in their power to ensure the former. Of course, he knew he couldn't, not with everyone else around… it was bad enough that he had a sneaking suspicion that JJ had heard them talking. He didn't know just what Matthew was capable of but he hoped that Matthew could read minds.

 _Everything's gonna be ok, we're gonna get him… we won't let him hurt her…_ he thought, hoping against logic that Matthew could hear his thoughts.

…

Meanwhile, inside the chapel on the grounds of the cemetery, the Unsub had forced Ana down onto a set of kneelers in the second row of pews. He had also ripped her most prized possession, a one-inch by half-inch silver, three-barred cross necklace, from around her neck, and thrown it onto the marble floor, where it landed with a soft _clink_ and slid further across the floor toward the side window.

That made her flinch, that necklace had a calming effect on her when she wore it, a symbol of her faith, a reminder of who she was. Without it, she felt exposed and vulnerable, and it became more difficult to control the storm of emotions boiling inside her.

"Why? Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Why are you trying to kill us off? We've done nothing to you!" She cried.

"You survived." He spat loudly back at her. "You survived… and my daughter didn't!" he growled. "She was born with complex CHD, multiple structural defects, in the mid-90s, just like you. Here you are twenty years later, still alive and healthier than ever, while my baby girl is in the ground…"

"Killing us won't bring her back… don't you get that? Back then, kids like us had a fifty/fifty shot of seeing our eighteenth birthday… and who made it and who didn't was just as much about how much fight we had in us as it was about the treatment we received." She replied.

That only angered the unsub even further, he got down to her level, with his face less than three inches away from hers, and yanked her hair by the roots.

"Are you insinuating, that my daughter just…gave up…?" He snarled.

"No…but sometimes the will to live isn't enough…sometimes we're fighting a war we can't win…"

At that, he just yanked harder.

"Listen here, you little Bitch… I've read your file… I know what your weaknesses are…" He told her, holding up a small bottle of pills and shaking it so that the pills it contained rattled inside. "Now here's how this is going to work, you heard about James's murder and you were so overwhelmed by the pain of losing yet another dear friend… that you drove to Matthew's gravesite, and knowingly took medication you know you can't tolerate. The Police, and the feds, will find you here, dead, and a simple tox-screen will prove that it's exactly what it looks like."

"You really think you'll get away with this? If they got federal agents involved, that means the police are on to you…Don't be stupid, just let me go and give yourself up."

He tried to force a few of the pills down her throat, but she kept her lips sealed and her teeth clenched as if her life depended on it.

Faced with her refusal, he changed tactics, he softened.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you sweetheart… I know it doesn't seem like it, but I'm trying to help you…you've been fighting for so long… if you swallow these, all that pain will melt away, and you'll never have to go through any of that again…." He told her reassuringly, as though he thought his offer was tempting.

It didn't work, Ana stood fast in her refusal to take the pills. She didn't even open her mouth, afraid that he'd take the opportunity to force them on her….


	8. Chapter 8 Trancendence

Chapter 7: Transcendence

Meanwhile, the BAU finally arrived at the cemetery and immediately got out of the cars.

"Everyone split up and start searching, tear the place apart if you have to. She's here somewhere!" Hotch ordered.

The team obeyed, splitting up to cover the whole cemetery as quickly as possible.

As Reid walked through the darkness, following the beam of his flashlight, he noticed that Matthew was running in another direction.

"You're going the wrong way!" the little boy shouted. "Follow me!"

At first, Reid had no idea what Matthew could be running toward, since his grave, according to the map Garcia had found, was in the direction Reid had been heading. Then he saw it, the chapel that was used for funerals, the lights were on inside. That didn't make any sense, unless Ana and her captor were in there…

"Guys! This way!" Reid called to the others. "They're in the chapel!

Having heard him, the others turned from where they were heading and followed.

Reid got there first, and when he got inside, his jaw dropped in stunned horror.

Sticking out from the second row of pews, was a young woman with brown hair laying on the ground, she was shaking and blood was spilling out of her mouth onto the floor.

When he looked up, Reid saw Matthew crouching beside her. His usually benevolent expression was one replaced by absolute hatred. The little boy's whole form shook with boiling rage.

The Unsub stood a little ways away, laughing nervously the way people do after escaping a dangerous situation, but he stopped when he perceived what Reid could plainly see. The room had gone cold, every candle near the alter had been blown out by an inexplicable breeze, inexplicable that is, unless you could see the little apparition who was about ready to go ballistic.

"You're too late… she's fading away as we speak…"

"What have you done to her?!" Matthew screamed.

"I gave the girl an aspirin…" The Unsub spat back.

Reid could tell from Matthew's behavior that the Unsub must have given Ana something she wasn't able to take… which meant that he was either lying or that alone was enough to poison her.

"How many did you give her?" Reid barked.

That's when the Unsub bolted, he made a run for the back door behind the alter, but Reid was faster. He shot the Unsub in the leg to prevent him from getting away. Matthew though, was still furious. The young ghost went right through the Unsub's body, causing him to pass out. Then somehow, with only his mind, he relit the candles and caused the flames to grow in size to the point where they set the building alight.

Morgan ran into the chapel, having heard the shots. When he saw the Unsub on the ground, he went over to arrest him.

In an act of desperate, adrenalin-fueled courage, Reid lunged forward and scooped the unconscious Ana into his arms and carried her out of the chapel. It didn't look like she had much time and he had no idea how far out the nearest medical help might be. If he didn't get her out of there quickly she'd never make it.

"Hotch! I've got her…I found Anastasia… but we need medical. Now! I think she's been poisoned!"

"There's an ambulance waiting on the edge of the cemetery, go." He ordered.

He didn't need to be told twice. He ran, and ran, with Matthew now calmed down, trailing close behind, unseen by Hotch and the others. All the while, Ana was coughing up more and more blood, it was all Reid could do to keep her head elevated in his arms so that she wouldn't choke on it. He could see Matthew running at their side, his eyes wide as he stared at her in horror and worry.

Seeing this, Reid forced himself to speed up. At this rate she'd either choke on a mix of blood and bile, or she'd bleed out internally before the medics had a chance to stabilize her. He couldn't allow it! No matter what, he couldn't let her die, not after everything she had been through, not after all Matthew had done since his own death to try to protect her. Ana had to survive…

Finally, after the longest five minutes of Reid's entire life, the ambulance came into view.

 _Just a little further… we're almost there… please hang on…_

The instant they arrived, Reid laid Ana's limp, unconscious body down on the waiting gurney and explained to the paramedics the relevant parts of what had transpired.

18 hours later:

The aspirin she'd been given had caused Ana to bleed out internally and had required several blood transfusions, some of which had come from Reid since he was of a compatible blood type. According to the doctors, though she remained weak from blood loss and the stress from her ordeal, Ana would recover fully and be herself again before long.

Reid was at the hospital, waiting to be able to speak to her, and to return the necklace Morgan had gotten off the chapel floor after arresting the Unsub. The Unsub had turned out to be Marcus Greenfield after all. He was safely behind bars for the time being, but now the team needed Ana's version of what happened in order to keep him there.

The only loose end that Reid could see, was that Matthew was still around. With Ana safe now, her life out of danger medically and her attacker behind bars, why hadn't the boy moved on already?

Finally… Reid was given permission to speak to her. He found her reclining in a hospital bed, apparently doing nothing, not sleeping, just staring… with a look on her face, somewhere between confusion, wonder, and the edge of tears. He knew then why Matthew still remained in the mortal world. She'd been able to see him during the confrontation with Greenfield and he probably wanted to say goodbye before he finally left once and for all.

"Ana…" Spencer said as though it were a question.

"Yes?" She replied, turning her head to face him. "Oh…Oh my gosh… it's you…you're the one who saved me…aren't you?"

"I'm the one who carried you to the ambulance, yes…" He replied.

"You saved me…" She said as though she were drifting into a flood of hyper-emotional memories. "But you weren't the only one…I'm guessing since you found me in time that you're aware I wasn't that creep's only victim…I know this probably sounds like I was out of it from the blood loss… but I could swear that one of my best friends who was also killed was there… and you probably think I'm crazy now because Matt's been dead for years and that doesn't make any logical sense but…"

"I don't think you're crazy at all…"

"What? Did you see him too?" She asked.

Reid simply nodded as Matthew stepped out from behind him, still there in ghost form.

"Hi Ana…" The little boy replied.

"N-no way… no way… Matt, Buddy? Is…is that really you?" she asked in astonishment.

"Not quite in the flesh…but yeah, it's me…" he told her, smiling broadly up at her.

"Oh my God… how? It's been so long… How are you here?" she asked.

"I stuck around to protect you from that creep… then I found this guy and he helped us… Ana… I came to see you, because now that you're safe, it's time for me to go. Knowing that you and Bo were still in danger is what kept me tied to this world this entire time. Now that you'll be alright and Bo is waiting for me on the other side, I can't stay much longer."

"Then before you go… let me tell you what I should have told you all those years ago. Matt, you are, the best friend a girl ever had. You are the nicest, strongest person I've ever known and no matter what, never forget that I love you and we'll always be best friends…" she told him.

Matt smiled. "I love you too… why else would I still be here? Don't forget me, but don't let my loss keep you from living… live for both of us… Remember, I'll still be watching…" he told her. Then he gave Reid a look of gratitude and faded away.

"Thank you…" Ana said again, turning to Reid.

"I'm just sorry my team and I were too late to save your other friend…" He replied.

At that, she sighed heavily.

"Bo really is gone isn't he?" she asked.

"Yeah…unfortunately…"

"Part of me knew it but, I still hoped somewhere deep inside of me that, that jackass was lying when he told me that… he told me that, while he was forcing me to drive to the cemetery… Bo was a good guy, kind, smart, fearless. He always stood up when he knew something wasn't right and he always put other people before himself, even when he should've given that a rest and put himself first for once. I knew he was never going to stop until we found out what really happened that night. I just had no idea that something like that would get him killed." She explained.

"I found this in Bo's dorm… I asked his mom and she said that she thought he'd want you to have it…" Reid told her, handing her the photograph of the threesome when they were little.

Ana gave a small ripple of bittersweet laughter and Reid noticed that there were tears forming in her brown eyes. "This was taken outside of Matt's garage… it was his fourth birthday party. They were like my brothers, the three of us were inseparable back then…"

"If you don't mind me asking, how did you guys meet?" he asked.

"Support group… the group was for the parents but it connected the children too. Which was a good thing because there are some things that we were able to understand about each other that other people, even our own families never could. That was especially true in our generation where it was likely that we would lose half of our friends along the way, when the photo was taken we were all still here. Now it's only me. If there's one thing I've learned it's that the physical scars are nothing compared to the emotional ones. Something broke in me the night Matt passed away, it took me years to rebuild it and I might never have been able to if it hadn't been for Bo. The three of us became family in the first place not just because we understood each other but because it was the only way we could survive emotionally, psychologically…" She explained before handing the picture back. "I have my own copy of that… though it is nice to know that I'm not the only one who kept it all these years…"

"Oh, my partner also found your necklace…" he told her, taking it out and handing it to her.

"Thanks…" she replied, immediately putting it on. "So uh…how was it…you know…being haunted by the ghost of my old friend…?" she asked.

"You have no idea…let's just say he wasn't taking no for an answer. He was bound and determined to make sure nothing happened to you…" Reid answered.

"I'm just glad he can finally rest in peace… he deserved a whole lot better than what he got in life. He certainly didn't deserve all the hell he went through…I still miss him though…"

"I know the feeling…"

Reid: _"In the old lore Midgard was always a harsh place, filled with monsters. Despite this, humanity wasn't seen as under siege. To the contrary, we are the invaders in a world of terrors, building societies and bringing order to a chaotic landscape. So we sing our songs to the honored dead, and bring the fight to the enemies' doorstep. That is what it means to be human." – Xander Folmer_


End file.
